CUSHING, HENRY PLATT (10 Oct. 1860-14 April 1921) was a prominent geologist who taught for 30 years at Western Reserve University (see CASE WESTERN RESERVE). He was born into a prominent Cleveland family, being the grandson of early settler Dr. ERASTUS CUSHING and the son of physician HENRY K. CUSHING and Betsey Williams Cushing. His brother, HARVEY W. CUSHING, became one of America's most prominent physicians. Henry P. Cushing studied geology at Cornell University, where he graduated in 1882 and later added master's and doctor's degrees. He also studied at the School of Mines at Columbia University and in Europe at the University of Munich. In 1886 he married Florence E. Williams of Ithaca, N.Y., and from 1885-91 he taught at the State Normal School at Mankato, Minn. Cushing came to Western Reserve in 1892, becoming full professor of geology in 1895 and eventually head of the department. From 1893 he was also a geologist on the New York State Geology Survey, carrying out field work in the Adirondack Mts. His principal legacy to Western Reserve was the geological collection he left to the university, consisting of the paleontological collection inherited from his father-in-law, Prof. S.G. Williams, as well as his own specimens culled from the Cleveland and Adirondack regions. Cushing was a charter member of the Geological Society of America and a trustee of the CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. He died in Cleveland, survived by his wife and a daughter, Cornelia Cushing Peterson.
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